Hold Congress Accountable

Knowledge is power. It makes sure people understand what is happening to their country, and how they can make a difference. FreedomWorks University will give you the tools to understand economics, the workings of government, the history of the American legal system, and the most important debates facing our nation today. Enroll in FreedomWorks University today!

Search FreedomWorks

Resources

Blog

Progress for Educational Reform in Maine

In the last legislative session, Maine Governor Paul LePage pushed education reform changes to help kids in his state. His agenda included tougher teacher and principal evaluations, and the switch to a proficiency-based high school diploma. The legislature did not, however, pass school choice legislation. Yesterday, a school choice work group in Maine met for the first time to determine if and how school choice will be implemented in Maine.

The group, comprised of officials from state education unions and gubernatorial appointees, will research school choice options and make recommendations to the state legislature in January. Maine currently has school choice, but it is limited both in scope and in parental empowerment. In the current system, a child can change school districts, but this must be approved by the superintendent. Town academies are also in operation, and can accept kids from towns and districts that don't have their own high schools. This still leaves a lot of children in Maine needing better options.

Unfortunately, there are partisan divides on how best to improve education for these children. Democrats believe that enough improvements can be made to existing public schools to make other options, such as charter schools or open enrollment, unnecessary. Democratic Senate candidate Colleen Quint argues that “I think there are so many opportunities to work within the existing public school structure to provide new programs, new support for teachers and, especially, new support for kids, that that's what we really ought to be focused on.”

Republicans, on the other hand, believe that Maine needs to look to other models to improve education. Republican Senator, and member of the Legislature's Education Committee says that "I feel that the Democrats have consistently tried to block progress and block choice in the public schools."

Fortunately, LePage seems determined for parents in Maine to have more options when it comes to the education of their children. We will be watching to see what those options are.

The Department of Education should be abolished! This is the biggest boondoggle of "wasted" taxpayer dollars. It's nothing more than an infiltration of Progressives who want nothing more than to control and indoctrinate the minds of our children. Look at this from LIBERAL Vermont and you decide...Vermont's Education Commissioner Vilaseca is a GREAT man full of character and integrity. This Progressive machine in Vermont want to squash anyone that remotely promotes Conservatism.http://vtdigger.org/2012/08/10/vermont-state-board-of-education-opens-na...

On today's edition of The FreedomCast, Director of Grassroots for FreedomWorks, Whitney Neal joins me to discuss several school choice bills currently making their way through the Texas legislature and why school choice is the civil rights issue of our times.
You can support FreedomWorks' efforts in Texas and on behalf of children everywhere who deserve school choice.

Meet the Thompsons, a homeschooling family from Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson both attended traditional public schools, but decided they wanted something different for their own four children. So, how did this family decide that homeschooling was best for them, and what happened next?

Republicans are beginning to coalesce around School Choice with Senators Rand Paul and Lamar Alexander’s amendment. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas began with a rallying cry in his key-note address at CPAC declaring “education is too important for it to be controlled by bureaucrats in Washington, taking choices away from parents and kids…We need to champion school choice – the civil rights issue of the next generation.” Not only is Senator Ted Cruz correct about school choice being the civil rights issue of the next generation, but it is the civil rights issue of this generation.

Kids are weird — especially mine. Sure, I can identify personality traits as coming from me and my wife, but they’re jumbled up in odd ways. If we’re the original track, our kids are the dance remixes. My eldest daughter is analytical and conscientious when work needs to be done, but fearless and funny in her off time. Her younger sister will procrastinate and goof off, but will create elaborate, amazing projects just for fun. Definitely related, but wildly different.

Today, the Indiana Supreme Court made an important decision for families in that state by unanimously upholding their school voucher law. “Finding that the challengers have not satisfied the high burden required to invalidate a statute on constitutional grounds, we affirm the trial court’s judgment upholding the constitutionality of the statutory voucher program,” the court wrote.

While Tennessee currently allows students to switch from one public school to another, both in-and-out of district, their overall options are very limited. With the currently proposed legislation, SB196/HB190, legislators aim to create much greater educational opportunities that improve the lives of all children; especially low-income families. Children don’t deserve to fall victim to bureaucracies that standardize school programs when their individual needs are at stake.

It might seem strange to suggest that the American educational system look to bourbon, but maybe that is just what they need. Maker’s Mark had a little lesson in free market economics this week, and schools should take note.

Kasey Locke is a bright, beautiful six-year-old girl. But she faces challenges most kids never will. At age three, Kasey was diagnosed with autism.￼When she started kindergarten at her Phoenix, Ariz., public school, Kasey’s parents worked with school officials to incorporate a new learning method that worked well for her. When the school didn’t apply these methods, her parents continued to tutor her after school.

The first part of this series focused on the various efforts around the country to establish school choice. This piece attempts to shed light upon the history of compulsory public education in America. As the nation debates the merits of school choice I’ve noticed a common theme in the arguments of the ideas’ opponents. They assert that the implementation of school choice would abandon a noble tradition with early roots in the American founding.

Among the many policy initiatives discussed in President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night was a proposal to provide pre-kindergarten education for 4-year olds in all fifty states, an expansion of the Head Start program first started in 1965.